[matus_congrady]

I believe that the job description differs a lot from company to company.

From my experience, the best architects spent most of their time focusing on these things:

  1. Always understand what the current business priorities are.
  2. Design the overall system architecture so it covers all of the business needs, and nothing more. Always focus on keeping it as simple as possible. Even when people argue "lets do this some other way, because we might need it in the future".
  3. Fight the urge to use "latest and coolest" technology. Don't listen to consultants selling you unnecessary tech. Stick to what works. Even when it's boring. Explain it properly to your team.
  4. Maintain proper documentation. Focus on making it as simple as possible, easy to adjust and up to date. Otherwise its value will be close to 0.
  5. Use UML diagrams. Think about where the complexity of the given system is, and use only the most relevant ones. For example, if the complexity lies in complex workflows, use sequence diagrams or state diagrams. If the complexity lies in complex datamodel, use ERD diagrams.

But more often than not, architects also have to focus on other things, mostly related to DevOps, Platform Engineering and overall developer workflows.

[shameless plug] That's one of the reasons I founded https://stacktape.com - AWS-focused "internal developer platform" that allows developers to do this sort of stuff on their own, without involvment of architects, DevOps or others.